OnLabor

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Author:Michael Migiel-Schwartz

Michael Migiel-Schwartz is a student at Harvard Law School and a member of the Labor and Employment Lab.

Fight for Just Cause: Start Local, Force the Impossible

Apr 28, 2021 Michael Migiel-Schwartz

In December New York City passed a law granting its 67,000 fast food workers “just cause” protections. The law, taking effect in July, mandates that the city’s fast food workers can no longer be fired “at will.” That New York’s fast food workers will enjoy greater job protections is indeed a victory. But the law […]

What Is OIRA and What Can It Do for Workers?

Apr 26, 2021 Michael Migiel-Schwartz

In January the Biden administration announced that Sharon Block, formerly of the Harvard Labor and Worklife Program, would be the top politically appointed official at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). This prompts two questions: what is OIRA, and what can this office—historically subject to progressive critique—do for workers? OIRA sits within the […]

Amazon’s Last-Mile Drivers Can Escape the FAA, But Who Else?

Mar 11, 2021 Michael Migiel-Schwartz

More than half of nonunion private-sector employees are subject to forced arbitration clauses. These clauses, many of which also include class action waivers, require that employees bring legal complaints through private arbitration—a setting that favors employers. Because the Supreme Court’s Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) jurisprudence has been so unkind to workers—in 2001 determining that only […]

Why District Attorneys Should Take Up Wage Theft Criminalization

Feb 22, 2021 Michael Migiel-Schwartz

Studies show that employers steal billions each year from their employees, most often by failing to pay the minimum wage or overtime. Wage theft figures from the ten largest states alone reach $8 billion, a figure nearly half as large as all other forms of property theft nationwide. While wage theft is typically addressed […]

OnLabor

Law. Workers. Organizing.

OnLabor is a blog devoted to workers, unions, and their politics. We interpret our subject broadly to include the current crisis in the traditional union movement (why union decline is happening and what it means for our society); the new and contested forms of worker organization that are filling the labor union gap; how work ought to be structured and managed; how workers ought to be represented and compensated; and the appropriate role of government — all three branches — in each of these issues.

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Fight for Just Cause: Start Local, Force the Impossible

What Is OIRA and What Can It Do for Workers?

Amazon’s Last-Mile Drivers Can Escape the FAA, But Who Else?

Why District Attorneys Should Take Up Wage Theft Criminalization